Arca-SwissLast year I bought a Gitzo GH2780QR [1] ballhead with an additional (medium) lens plate for my 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. The concept of this ballhead was/is ingenious. By using the big knob/dial you could change the friction on the ball. This enables you to pan/rotate the camera and lens very fluently, and when you applied enough friction, you could let go of your camera, and it would not move or fall down, and you'd still be able to pan/rotate the camera. All in all very safe and handy.
But there were some things that annoyed me;
Wibi... what? I've no idea what it means, but Wibiya allows you to add a toolbar to your website. The toolbar is situated at the bottom of your web browser. Basically, it adds functionality to your website. The tool is still in beta, and you need to sign up to get access. Upon registration you wil receive an invite code within a couple of hours.
The toolbar holds several (configurable) tools you can use to display;
- a search bar (powered by Google Search).
So if google doesn't (want to) know you, you won't find many search results
- a translate-this-page-to-<20 languages> option (powered by Google Translate).
- recent / random posts from your website/blog.
based on your RSS feed.
- your Twitter Status.
- Photo album
You need a Flickr account for that.
- Facebook crap.
- etc.
Rammstein @ GelredomeOn Sunday December 6th, we saw the Rammstein 'Liebe ist für alle da' tour in the Gelredome in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The evening started with the support act Combichrist. These guys use drums and synthesizer to generate lots of noise. Music/rhythm; good, vocals; bad :-). Definitely not my cup of tea.
Just after 8 o'clock Rammstein started with the song 'Rammlied' from their latest album. Probably the best song for opening their show. And a great show it was. The show was filled with enough pyrotechnics to provide a small village in Siberia with warmth for at least a year.
We'll be heading out for some night photography next month. Playing with long exposures is one of the thing you can't get around. Especially since I don't have any f/0.2 lenses in my bag.
Most lenses are sharpest (the so-called sweet-spot) around 2 stops from their biggest aperture (mostly around the apertures of f/8 and f/11) , but the problem is that these apertures kill the available light hitting the sensor of your camera. You could turn up the ISO (to 102400 if you have a Nikon D3s), but that gives you noise, and lots of it with most consumer dSLR's.
The only proper thing to do is adjusting the shutterspeed. Leave the aperture on its sweet-spot (f/9 or f/11), and the ISO at ISO100 or ISO200 (for the lowest amount of noise). But if you do that, chances are that you need exposures much longer than the available maximum on your camera, which is 15 or 30 seconds (depending on your camera). Which leaves you with the bulb setting on your camera. But how do you calculate the time needed for an exposure?
Bulb means that the shutter stays open for as long as you press the shutter release button.
In the post before this one I had some trouble with a Freecom XXS USB drive. I had no way of fixing it, so it went back to the store (and basically back to Freecom). But since that drive is used for offsite backups I needed a replacement unit, because the return of the old drive could take several weeks.
This time the Western Digital My Passport Essentials 500GB (2.5" USB powered) disk was chosen. A nice small device with lot's of storage capacity.
Western Digital Proprietary Connector on the LeftUpon opening the box I noticed immediately that there's something 'wrong' with this drive. The cable / USB connector is proprietary. The connector is some sort of ultra-mini-USB format. No need to say that of all the USB cables I collected over the years will ever fit. So I need to be extremely careful with the one I got with the drive.
Since I lose stuff (hell, everyone does), you could expect a blog post of me swearing 'bloody hell' (and stuff) when I have lost the cable.... but I won't, just read the rest of this review.
;)
